Dougherty County area

Population and density of Dougherty County

The Census Bureau estimates that 82,616 people lived in Dougherty County on July 1, 2025. That ranks #718 of 3,222 county equivalents nationally and #33 of 159 in Georgia. Since the April 1, 2020 estimates base of 85,796, the population has declined by 3,180 (−3.7%), compared with +5.5% for Georgia as a whole.

With 328.6 square miles of land, that is 251 people per square mile (97 per km²), placing Dougherty County #571 nationally for density and #31 in Georgia. The median county equivalent has 47 people per square mile; the Georgia median is 69. Put another way, there are about 2.5 acres of land per resident.

U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2025 population estimates. Estimates are revised each year and are not decennial census counts. Density divides the whole population by the whole county’s land area, so it describes an average, not how settlement is distributed within the county. Population sources and methods.

Cities and towns in Dougherty County

1 incorporated place lies at least partly in Dougherty County. Together they are home to 66,907 people (81%); the other 15,709 (19%) live outside any incorporated place, in unincorporated communities and rural areas.

The largest is Albany city, with 66,907 residents in the county.

Metropolitan area

Dougherty County is a central county of the Albany, GA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its 4 county equivalents have 145,510 residents on 1,591 square miles of land; Dougherty County accounts for 20.7% of the land and 56.8% of the residents. By combined land it ranks #207 of 393 metropolitan areas, and #303 by population.

ZIP codes

7 ZIP Code Tabulation Areas have land in Dougherty County; 5 of them have most of their land inside the county, and the others mainly cover neighboring areas.

31701317043170531707317213176331791

ZIP Code Tabulation Areas are the Census Bureau’s approximations of USPS ZIP Code service areas, from the 2020 Census relationship files. Lighter codes have less than half of their land in this county. Post-office-box and single-address ZIP Codes have no tabulation area.

Counties bordering Dougherty County

Dougherty County shares a land border with 6 county equivalents. It has more land than 1 of them. The largest neighbor is Worth County (570.7 mi²) and the smallest is Calhoun County (280.4 mi²). Together with its neighbors, Dougherty County forms a block of 2,725.5 mi² of land, of which it holds 12.1%.

How big is Dougherty County compared with U.S. states?

Dougherty County has less land than any of the 50 states. Rhode Island, the smallest state by land area, has 1,033.9 mi², about 3.1 times as much. Georgia’s county land could hold about 176 areas the size of Dougherty County.

Another way to picture it: the same land area would fill a square about 18.1 miles (29.2 km) on each side. Real county shapes are rarely square, so this is a scale reference rather than a width or driving distance.

State figures are the sums of each state’s county-equivalent land measurements in the same Census release, so states and counties are compared on the same basis. Published state totals can differ slightly because of rounding. Compare all states · Counties bigger than entire states.

What stands out about Dougherty County?

Dougherty County has more land than 480 of the other 3,221 county equivalents in the dataset.

A median is the middle county-equivalent measurement, not the average of the largest and smallest. All three bars use the same linear scale. Very small areas may appear as a thin sliver; the labels retain their values.

Does including water change its rank?

Using land plus water places Dougherty County at #2,776 nationally by total area, 34 places farther from the top than its land rank. Other county equivalents gain more area when their water measurements are included.

Its water share is 1.8%, compared with a national county-equivalent median of 1.2% — 0.6 percentage points higher. This describes the statistical geography’s land/water mix, not flood exposure or developable land.

Closest positions in the national land ranking

These entries sit immediately beside Dougherty County in the national ranking. They can be in different states and are not necessarily geographic neighbors.

Calculated from the same Census release as the area table. Total-area order uses original ALAND + AWATER; water shares and chart labels use published square miles. Calculation details.